Friday, March 11, 2011

A bit late getting this up today, forgive me. I was waylaid by hearings to determine how radicalized I am. Word on the street is 85%, but no one can tell me where that number came from. Here, in no particular order, are some of the First-Amendment-related cases you may have missed this week:

A school bus driver in Oregon was fired for decorating his pickup truck with a Confederate flag, emblazoned prominently with the word "Redneck," and refusing to remove the flag at the bus yard. The driver and his attorneys argue that he has a First Amendment right to fly the flag.

Here at home, the ACLU of Pennsylvania is suing the Panther Valley School District over their practice of random drug tests for students, a practice the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional way back in 2003. To be fair, when I went to high school our American history textbooks stopped before even the Vietnam War.

I'll close by reminding you that this was also the (very depressing) week President Obama officially fully reversed his campaign position on Gitmo, reopening military tribunals and announcing that the United States may "need" to keep some individuals imprisoned indefinitely without trial. At this point habeas corpus has been lost so long he probably has Stockholm Syndrome. Poor guy almost made it to 800.